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WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

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Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#121

Post by uranium »

jrmg wrote: post #109
busyant wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to create a "new normal" or new baseline where an e.g. strawberry is sweat again. Just an interesting story. About 5 years ago, I tried to cut out all processed carbs from my diet. After several months, I was away from home and I had to eat something ---the only thing open was a Dunkin Donuts. I ordered an egg-white sandwich on a plain English muffin, and for kicks I took a bite out of the English muffin. Holy shit…

I’m sure it did have added sugar. Basically all American supermarket bread products (including most bread!) do, and are are super sweet to Europeans. It extends shelf life though. European supermarket bread will mould in usually less than a week, but it’s really unusual for an American bread to go mouldy.

American bread certainly does go moldy, but the sugar absorbs moisture and keeps the bread softer longer.

That being said, I'd much rather they used less. At this point it's pretty hard to buy a hamburger bun around here [SF] that doesn't taste like a brioche to me.

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#122

Post by whatscooking »

zouhair wrote: post #13
firstfewshells wrote: post #2

I don't know what kind of an egregious organization the WHO is. First they let millions of people consume sugar alternatives for years, if not decades. Then they release a report saying those alternatives may lead to premature deaths. At this point, I feel like saying, F** it. I'm just gonna consume whatever the f** I feel like without ever reading about or listening to anything in the news.

It is quite sad that even in Hacker News are people lacking basic knowledge on how science works.

Oh we know how it works. Science was bought out by Big industry a long time ago and is as much of a religion as Christianity

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#123

Post by uranium »

unethical_ban wrote: post #78
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This depends on the sweetener. There have been recent articles linking bad health effects to erythritol and sucralose that I am aware of.

Damn, I thought erythritol was downside-free. Looks like it is associated with a nontrivial risk of heart attack and stroke https://www.realsimple.com/study-links-stevia-and-monk-fruit...

Let's wait for the news cycle and science to settle: https://peterattiamd.com/more-hype-than-substance-erythritol...

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#124

Post by connicpu »

jrmg wrote: post #109
busyant wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to create a "new normal" or new baseline where an e.g. strawberry is sweat again. Just an interesting story. About 5 years ago, I tried to cut out all processed carbs from my diet. After several months, I was away from home and I had to eat something ---the only thing open was a Dunkin Donuts. I ordered an egg-white sandwich on a plain English muffin, and for kicks I took a bite out of the English muffin. Holy shit…

I’m sure it did have added sugar. Basically all American supermarket bread products (including most bread!) do, and are are super sweet to Europeans. It extends shelf life though. European supermarket bread will mould in usually less than a week, but it’s really unusual for an American bread to go mouldy.

Sourdough was the only sliced bread I could find at my supermarket that didn't contain any added sugar and also wasn't ridiculously overpriced. That's been the only bread I've used for over a year now, and regular American sandwich bread tastes so weird to me now when I have the chance to try any

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#125

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

mortify wrote: post #120
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is, this stuff is hard to get right, especially in the middle of something - someone is unlikely to be right 100% of the time. Who are you following that's getting everything right? Or getting more things right than The WHO?

When COVID hit, the WHO had a pandemic plan in place (written in 2016). Organizations often do this so that when an emergency happens, they can use the decisions made with cooler heads rather than trying to react to a rapidly changing landscape... at least until new, solid evidence emerges. The WHO did the opposite of its pandemic plan. They failed to follow best practices and did so without any evidence for it. The…

This is an impressively reductionist view.

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#126

Post by hedora »

crazygringo wrote: post #40
hedora wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause weight gain, since they make you hungrier, and also lower your metabolism. This was shown in follow up studies with humans, but with mice, they had three groups that each got a fixed amount of calorie counted food and a hamster wheel. They then added sugar to one group's water and artificial sweetener to another group's. The artificial sweetener groups gained the most we…

> Artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause weight gain That does not seem to be the scientific consensus: "The majority of clinical studies performed thus far report no significant effects or beneficial effects of artificial sweeteners on body weight and glycemic control" [1] "Thus, evidence from controlled studies suggests that artificial sweeteners don’t cause weight gain and may even be mildly effective for…

The healthline story is summarizing a large number of studies, all of which have ambiguous results, or show negative side effects.

So, like tobacco (which doctors used to recommend to help with lung health to kill colds, etc), there are a lot of ambiguous "no / little effect" studies in favor of artificial sweeteners, and a lot of studies showing clear negative effects. However, there aren't any showing significant benefits.

It's easy to produce a no-effect study via lazy experimental setup, and slight positive effects via P-hacking for strange things. For example, this quote from [2] looks like P-hacking:

> However, a recent review of nine observational studies noted that artificial sweeteners were associated with a slightly higher BMI — but not with increased body weight or fat mass (17Trusted Source).

Anyway, here are some other quotes from [2] against artificial sweeteners.

I pasted in their conclusion at the bottom of this comment, which can be summarized as "they won't help much, but they might hurt. If you have the following symptoms, discontinue use":

Though artificial sweeteners provide sweet taste, many researchers believe that the lack of calories prevents complete activation of the food reward pathway.

This may be the reason that artificial sweeteners are linked to increased appetite and cravings for sugary food in some studies (8Trusted Source).

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans in five men showed that sugar consumption decreased signaling in the hypothalamus, the appetite regulator of your brain (9Trusted Source).

This response was not seen when participants consumed aspartame — suggesting that your brain may not register artificial sweeteners as having a filling effect (9Trusted Source).

...

Another argument against artificial sweeteners is that their extreme and unnatural sweetness encourages sugar cravings and sugar dependence.

...

Though observational studies cannot prove cause and effect, the results are sometimes quite staggering.

For example, one study found that a high intake of diet soft drinks was linked to a 121% greater risk of type 2 diabetes (24Trusted Source).

Another study noted that these beverages were associated with a 34% greater risk of metabolic syndrome (25Trusted Source).

This is supported by one study on the effects of artificial sweeteners on both mice and humans. It associated the sweeteners with glucose intolerance and a disruption in gut bacteria (26Trusted Source).

...

In fact, replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners may be helpful in reducing body weight — though only slightly at best.

...

However, if you experience cravings, poor blood sugar control, or other health problems, avoiding artificial sweeteners may be one of many things to consider.

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#127

Post by redundantly »

hendersoon wrote: post #101
Someone1234 wrote: post #10

This was posted when it was published in May. To use an analogy their argument is: Vaping is bad for you, don't do it. While ignoring that a ton of people quit smoking using vapes and that they're letting the perfect be the enemy of good. Same thing with NSS. While NSS are a useful tool for sugar reduction, studies have shown that over the medium-long term, you'll want to reduce artificially sweat foods and even swea…

Well, exactly right. I'm not choosing between putting a packet of splenda in my coffee or drinking it black. I'm choosing between a packet of splenda or two packets of sucrose. I'd find a study telling me which one of those is the better choice to be very helpful.

Try cold brew coffee. I've found I can drink cold brew black and it's perfectly palatable, whereas that's never been the case with hot brewed coffee.

If you'd like an easy way to try check out SToK. Fairly inexpensive, can be found at large store chains like Walmart.

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#128

Post by TeMPOraL »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #85
marliechiller wrote: post #5

So if I have to choose between diet and normal coke, which one is objectively worse for my health now?

Normal Coke is probably worse but they're both horrible. I only drink normal Coke but sparingly. Usually I'm having water or plain black coffee. I think the takeaway is that diet Coke doesn't allow you to train yourself to enjoy normal sweet foods again. I just had an apple and strawberries and it is basically candy to me. Edit: I have a question. Rank these food items by how healthful they are: a) 150 calories of Co…

> Rank these food items by how healthful they are:

Are you considering mental well-being as well, or just pure physical health? Because in case of the former, option b) will end up with the lowest score.

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#129

Post by hedora »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #66
hedora wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificial sweeteners have been shown to cause weight gain, since they make you hungrier, and also lower your metabolism. This was shown in follow up studies with humans, but with mice, they had three groups that each got a fixed amount of calorie counted food and a hamster wheel. They then added sugar to one group's water and artificial sweetener to another group's. The artificial sweetener groups gained the most we…

> They also cause all sorts of other health issues (cancer, digestive problems, neurological problems), but those are mostly product specific. The above applies to all non-nutritional sweeteners that have been studied. I would love to see some support of this. Artificial sweeteners are some of the most studied food additives. If there were a definitive association at practical consumption levels, that would be huge n…

It is huge news, in that a new story hits the news every few months.

A couple of days ago, a study showed one of the commonly-used sweeteners causes gut perforation.

A few months ago, they showed they disrupt gut microbes, leading to various inflammatory diseases and metabolic issues.

I could keep going back for thirty years, but discussed it in a reply to one of the sibling comments instead.

Re: WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

#130

Post by WonderBuilder »

gizmo686 wrote: post #33
WonderBuilder wrote: post #6

It feels to me that this advisory was not put out sensibly. WHO advises "against [artificial sweetener] use" because they "do not help control body mass or reduce the risk of weight-related illnesses" and because long term "[may increase the risk] of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease". But is that enough reason to give such a blanket statement disallowance? What if you want to have some sweetness from time t…

The actual recommendation: > WHO suggests that non-sugar sweeteners not be used as a means of achieving weight control or reducing the risk of noncommunicable diseases (conditional recommendation) > Conditional recommendations are those recommendations for which the WHO guideline development group is less certain that the desirable consequences of implementing the recommendation outweigh the undesirable consequences…

Thanks a lot for sharing that official document. It has great evidence and addresses the concerns I had. Additionally, the statement is labelled as a "recommendation", which is much more accomodating.
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